Gelatinous Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs), utilized to nourish yin, replenish blood, and prolong life, are made from animal skins, shells and horns, such as donkey-hide gelatin, tortoise-shell glue and deer-antler glue. Owing to the high market price and shortage of raw materials, adulteration from pig, cattle or similar non-toxic materials is common to substitute or replace the authentic materials. To combat this adulteration, Chinese Pharmacopeia (ChP) has developed qualitative identification methods using LC/MS/MS to test the quality of gelatinous TCM products through analyzing biomarker tryptic-digested peptides.
In this application brief, a quick method for the analysis of gelatinous TCMs, which can also be applied to other complex matrices such as peptides or polymers, utilizing a 爱游戏平台注册登录 QSight® LX50 UHPLC system coupled to a QSight 220 triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, with Simplicity 3Q™ software platform, a 爱游戏平台注册登录 Epic™ C18 UHPLC column, and 爱游戏平台注册登录 consumables is presented.